Let Not The Children Burn
by lovelydangerousdear
Summary: They are born from the stuff of legends. The children of Bad Wolf and her Storm, and they will bear the weight of the Universe. "You're existence is completely impossible." "Course it is Doctor, what fun would there be if it had been sanctioned?" slightRose/Metacrisis Main:Rose/Doctor Amy/Rory. *Various companions *Various Timey-Wimey Wibbly-Wobbly meetings
1. Chapter 1

*****Ok So I was trying to write the next chapter for LNTCB but I just couldn't. I thought it was moving awkwardly and it was hard to understand and I wasn unhappy so here a re-write, please give it a go and if oyu hate it I will re-upload and continue the old story.**

A long time ago Rose learned how lonely the world, the Universe can be without the person you love most. A little less long ago she learned just how lonely the world was without the person you loved most.

She and John Tyler-Noble-Smith work well together because of this. Because he can still remember how badly he wanted her, or rather how badly the Doctor wanted her, and she can still remember how lonely she was without her Doctor and they meet each other half way. They fall in love eventually, and once that happens it's all about marriage and soon thereafter babies. For years it's about babies and tests and empty nurseries. It's horribly ironic, for how compatible the human race is with any other species, this particular human, Rose, is not compatible with her half-alien husband. Tests and checks and test tubes all say the same thing: Their bits are fine, there is no reason why John Tyler-Noble-Smith and Rose Tyler cannot have children, yet they cannot.

The mere knowledge scathes them. There are tears and arguments and apologies and frustration. There are forgotten birthdays and workdays and nights where one of them doesn't come home, and then finally John builds the Loom.

He's tinkered with the idea. Toyed with it. He's thought it through ten times by twelve times, and finally he caves. Many long nights and careful construction soon create the Loom, and after he's checked it and rechecked it and taken it apart and put it bat together, he presents it to Rose.

"It's a Loom." He explains softly, "the Timeslords used them to create the next generation, that is via asexual mass-production. It creates people. Timelords. Well that one created Timelords, this one should just help us in our family department."

She looks at him torn and confused, so he continues quickly.

"I know we can't do in vitro fertilization, well because on me mostly, can't have medical tests showing the non-human variations of my DNA so I thought, well I thought we could give it a go."

She doesn't say anything, and John's heart pounds painfully against his ribs. He feels time slip by making him all the antsier. "If you don't want….I can destroy it, if you'd prefer."

Rose jerks up to look at him. Her gaze is consternating, as though she's trying to decipher the meaning of the universe from just his face. Her hazel eyes are tired and bright, but terrified and the slight laugh lines about her mouth are tight from her pursed lips.

He counts to seventy-two before she smiles a little unsure but hopeful. "Let's have a crack at it then." She says and he beams flooded with relief he didn't realize had piled on.

He throws his arms around her and they hug tight then kiss, which escalates, so that when they find themselves in front of the machine again, they are both completely disheveled and up with nervous anticipation in the middle of the night.

"So how do we do this?" Rose asks rubbing her arms. "Do I have to like….I mean DNA wise…Do I like…have to give it one of my eggs or somethin'?" She asks and John grins slightly.

"Nah, just prick your finger, and I'll prick mine. One drop of blood each should do it."

She looks at him incredulous. "Really? Just a drop? You sure? Seems like an awful little for a baby maker."

"Yes well, that's all that was really used on Gallifrey besides I made it, genius me, what could go wrong?"

Rose purses her lips but decides against mentioning the toaster, dishwasher and vacuum he had tinkered with. Instead she turns back to the Loom tensely and pricks her finger.

John does the same and they scamper back up to bed.

Needless to say, the next day when they comes down stairs in the morning to find a strapping young thirteen year old boy making breakfast they are a bit more than shocked. He hears their footsteps and looks up at their gaping shock. "Morning Mum, Dad," He smiles, "I made breakfast."

Rose glances at John then back at the boy. He looks a bit much like her first Doctor. He's got the nose and gangly form but the odd mix of blonde hair instead of the shaved black fuzz. He's wearing an old baggy night shirt and gym shorts he must have found in the clean laundry down stairs.

"Sorry who are you?" Rose asks dazed.

The boy frown, "I'm your son."

"We don't have a son." John says slowly, but Rose can see his eyes drift back towards their living room, where the Loom was left.

"You didn't have a son. I gained consciousness early this morning I thought, however it would be prudent to let you sleep and then greet you with breakfast." The moments that pass make the boy's face fall harder and harder into a serious mien of hidden hurt and something like anger.

Rose is the first to break the silences with a startling exasperate huff-almost-laugh. "John…."she makes that noise again shaking her head, and then looks at the boy.

"Well c'mere you. Let your mum have a good look at ya'." He looks at her sharply, and takes slow deliberate steps towards her, unease but hiding it well. Rose herself has no idea what she's doing, no idea what to feel about this half grown sprout, but she holds her arms out, and he approaches, and right when her left forefinger grazes his cheek, she knows.

She pulls him hard against her, and tucks his head under her chin as best she can, murmuring and petting his soft blond hair. "My boy," she whispers, "I have a son."

John from behind her is shaking, she can just feel it , but gingerly he reaches out to, and touches the boy. He trembles as he pulls them both into a hug, and Rose knows she should feel more trepidation over this, but there is just something so entirely right about the boy and him being theirs that makes everything seems so wonderfully ok.

"James," she says suddenly, and both her boys look at her. "You haven't got a name have you?"

Her son shakes his head. "I was waiting."

"You like the sound of James?"

"Yes."

"Well, alright then James." She says pulling him against her again. John stokes the boys hair again and kisses her cheek then suddenly makes a mad dash upstairs and comes tumbling down with a camera shooting off photos like a lunatic. "Perfect first moment, Rose, Mother and Son."

They almost don't make it into work, almost don't go at all, but an emergency call that sets them on edge ends up tearing them from their new son.

"You have to go." James says, "I'll be here safe and sound when you get back, but there's no time to explain my existence and save the world. I've already figured out most of the appliances, I'll just continue on further education."

"We can't just leave you." John frowns. "I haven't figured out why you turned out the way you did. Not that you're not brilliant, and all, but we sort of were planning on baby you."

"I'll figure it out and tell you, but today isn't a day you should dilly-dally. I can just feel it." James says rushing them out the door. They are torn really, between arguing that with him and going but in the end they go, mostly because their neighbor's car gets vaporized, but also because they need something they are used to shock them back from the surreal morning into reality.

In the end, James was right. Something was horribly wrong, and if they had waited any longer London might have been lost. Rose gets hurt, not too badly, but a telepathic invasion can have serious disorientating qualities. She groans as John helps her inside the next day in the wee hours of the morning, but their worry is torn between their own injuries and their new found son, James.

James. There are half a dozen shopping bags on the floor and neither of them really understands why as they scramble to the kitchen, James is sitting at the kitchen , but he is no longer the boy the left yesterday morning. He's tall and imposing, with all the rough features of the ninth Doctor, save for, once again the blonde hair, and general youth of his face. "Hello, Mother, Hello Father. I was growing but there weren't any clothes my size, so I did some shopping." He says unconcerned as he hand them both mugs of tea.

"But you were a little boy earlier, just thirteen, not, not all grown up." Rose rasps quietly.

"Mother please, try to rest, you were injured, don't strain yourself getting upset, it's the Loom. It's built to accelerate life to adulthood, Father just made it much to efficient. That's all."

"That's all? That's all?!" Rose says in frustration. "But we missed nappies and birthdays, and late nights and homework! We've missed firsts Christmases and trips to the Zoo and Sundays in bed. We've missed all the good things, what sort of parents are we then?"

Fat tears run down her face in frustration, and John grasps her hands in apology and comfort. They collapse together into kitchen chairs and James kneels in front of them readily. "You're my parents." He says quietly. "From the moment my pulse began to my first breath, and the awakening of my conscious mind, I have felt loved. I could feel it right down to my bones, because it was there in your blood. You loved each other and me without even knowing who I was yet. That makes you more my parents than time and birthdays. That is what makes me love you."

Rose stares at him in tears still then lunges to clutch at him crying and sobbing, and John pulls them into him as well. They all hold each other tight.

James pulls away first. "Now that that's settled I should introduce you to my brother. He was loomed in the late afternoon yesterday." Again he says this nonchalantly and again Rose and John are faced with the shock of seeing another gangly boy in their house, blonde too, but with floppier hair, and a broadness to his shoulders he smiles at them tentatively. Rose automatically opens her arms and he grins unsurely before flying at them, hugging them excitedly.

"Johnny." Rose murmurs, running her hands through his hair.

The answering grin he gives here is brilliant and bright, and tells her that she got it just right.

James, Johnny and John turn off the Loom after tea that night. John says it's on a continuum, to create as many people from the blood samples as possible, and sheepishly rubbing his neck, he adds that he had forgotten entirely that the aging process had been built into the Gallifreyan machines he based his off of. He frowns and mutters that it must work faster because the boys were human; aging them into adulthood rapidly, but stopping as soon and puberty was passed.

Rose sees them exchange looks but can't bring herself out of shock to call them on it.

It takes a while, and a lot of explaining at Torchwood, but eventually, they become a real family. The boys take positions at Torchwood as scientists- honestly for being only a few months old they are geniuses beyond compare, and John just loves to brag, or at least look smug about it- and they go home together and have dinner and talk about the TARDIS and adventures. It doesn't take long for James and Johnny to claim a space in John's workshop either.

By the time the year is out the three are thick as thieves, and Rose feels a jealous ache in her belly. She can't teach them quantum physics or work on inter dimensional pockets, or talk long about histories of places light-years away. Oh course the boys try to do things with her that she likes, but Rise has so few hobbies beyond what her husband has shown her that its hard, and as much as she loves them, she can't stop wishing for a baby of her own.

The Loom doesn't get turned on, but a year after the boys come, Rose is at her physical with the doctor when they tell her at the clinic.

She's pregnant.

And that's when the trouble starts.


	2. Chapter 2

*****Second Chapter re-write! If you haven't seen my new first chapter posted read that first.**

Rose gives birth on the twenty-sixth of June, to a little girl. She and John had picked out the names Eloise or Eliza or Annabeth before, but holding her even weight in her arms, Rose looks at her tiny rosy cheeked daughter, and suddenly there is only one name that will fit.

"Junior," Rose says suddenly, as John lovingly stokes the pale wispy gold curls about the girl's forehead. Honestly, how is it all her children have turned out blondes?

"Hmm?"

"Let's name her Junior, Junior Marion Tyler-Noble-Smith. The Junior Doctor." Rose says simply. John stiffens at the last bit, but Rose can bring herself to care. It fits her so well, Rose can practically see it, the name settle around her baby like armor.

"Our daughter John, lookit our beautiful little girl." She whispers and hands the baby to her husband.

His shoulders loosen and her smiles warmly, lovingly, amazedly at them both. "Yes, alright," He coddles the girl close. "Our little Juni."

Jackie, Pete, Tony, James and Johnny are the only ones around for the birth besides the few Doctors Rose and John actually trust. Jackie is a mess of joy, Pete is proud, and Tony scrunches his nose and proclaims the girl to weird looking for words. James stands over his sister like a guard dog, and Johnny, well Johnny holds her like she is the most precious thing in the world.

Rose and John have their baby, and their boys, nothing has felt more right in the world than this. But nothing can be more wrong. Doctor Martha Jones- she knows nothing about the Doctor, or John in this world, she is just a right proper Doctor with the character and integrity they need to protect Juni and Rose form the tabloids- tells them quietly that their baby suffers from a strange deformity she has never before seen: Their baby has two hearts.

Rose and John are torn. Something in them tells them this was always supposed to happen, but it makes no sense as to how a human female and her mostly human husband could produce and alien baby. Doctor Jones assures them that all the tests came back negative for disease and disorders and that the DNA tests reveal nothing abnormal, yet the abnormally of the situation glares out at them. Junior has two hearts, both properly beating, and a circulatory at least sevenfold more complex than a human's.

No one knows what to say, so no one says anything. They go on. Finally there is a baby for the nursery, a house louder with crying and play things and telly. A house filled with love and laughter, so long as they could all pretend that there was nothing wrong.

But everything is wrong, Juni grows up as all little girls should. She starts talking at a normal age, but not the normal amount. She strings words together and says something new every day and it's only a matter of time before her fingers begin writing numbers and equations, or turning the pages of old books, when she shouldn't even read yet. She starts crawling, and from there it's running and big observing eyes and clever smiles. They put her into primary school early pretending she's older than she is, and by five Juni is a tall sprout for her age, but dwarfed by the heights of the eight year olds around her.

John keeps a log on her, on his own daughter, almost as if she's a test subject and it scares Rose, but she doesn't say anything because as scared as she is she needs to know too. He comes up one day, when James and Johnny have taken the girl to the Zoo, up from his workshop ashen faced and grey-ing severely at the temples.

He sits at the kitchen table with her, and stares. "What?" she asks bothered as she finished writing checks for the bills.

"You haven't noticed?"

"'Course I noticed, you're being a bloody nuisance with your staring." Rose mutters.

"Not that Rose," He swallows. "You haven't noticed how young you look?"

Rose snorts and looks up at him a bit coyly. "You know if you're in the mood, you don't have to be-"

"Damnit Rose!" John shouts slamming a fist on the table. "Listen to me." He gets up and walks over to her dragging her towards a mirror. "Look Rose, look, you look so damnably young. Younger and younger ever since Juni was born. Ever since we found you were pregnant."

"John what are you trying to imply?" She asks furiously.

"I'm not implying anything!" He shouted. "This is serious Rose, don't tell me you haven't noticed."

Rose jerks back from him and glances again at the mirror. She has noticed. She's just ignored it until now, passed it off as better makeup or just better diet.

"John I, I just." She looks at him, the man she's built her life with over the past years, and suddenly she is terrified. How will she ever get by without him? How can she? He looks so old now, gray and fined lined. She's terrified of him. Of him leaving her, one way or another.

"What's happening to me?"

John's face falls, he loses all sense of anger of determination, his shoulder slump and he rubs his eyes warily. "I don't know Rose, I don't know."

"Is it….is it Bad Wolf?"

"I-no." John says furiously. "No it can't be," and there's anger in his eyes at the very mention of the words Bad Wolf but Rose can't decide why. Bad Wolf saved them, saved the universe.

He storms away and misses Juni when the boys bring her home. Rose opens her arms and sits the girl on her lap and smoothes her wild golden curls, and listens as Juni rattles the facts verbatim from the plaques outside the animal cages.

She tries to pretend that her daughter's encyclopedia like mind is normal, but after her talk with John nothing looks normal anymore. Rose holds her daughter closer. James and Johnny notice.

A week later work at Torchwood spikes suddenly, and all thoughts of Juni's abnormalities are put aside for a moment. John seems to go greyer with every passing day, the boys are hardly home, and for the first time in Rose's life her home is and empty cold place. Juni is the only bright thing there, but even she seems to be dulling with the loss of her brothers and fathers.

Thursday night as she tucks the girl in, Rose decided it cannot go on any longer, but she doesn't realize that her boys have thought that too. They wait for her in the kitchen, all somber faced and worried.

"The universe is cracking." John says immediately.

"What do you mean-"

"Parts of Space and Time that never should have touched Rose, the Universe is cracking apart and in the middle of it, everything is being erased."

Rose freezes and immediately gravitates closer to their sons, grown as they are, they are her children, and she owns that fact like nothing else.

"What does that mean for us?"

"You'll have to leave. You Jackie, Pete, Tony the boys and Juni." John says rubbing his eyes. "We've arranged everything already, we'll just have to get you packed."

Rose stares at him, then at her sons. James is straight-faced and unrelenting, Johnny at least has the decency to look mildly abashed.

"So you've decided for me have you? You've decided without even asking. You didn't even tell me."

John looks up at her surprised. "I knew you would have agreed anyway, I mean, given the circumstances-"

"Damn it John!" Rose hisses. "It's not about the circumstances, we've been married for ages now, you and I have been through everything, you are supposed to trust me!"

"Rose, I trust you-"

"Not enough to tell me from the beginning, not enough to trust me to make the right decision, not enough to trust me with my own fate! You're just like him!"

John's face becomes stony as he stands. "Just like who?"

"The Doctor." Rose says biting back tears. "He never gave me the choice either, always sending me away, choosing what was best for me, leaving me without because he decided I was best for you-"

"Oh, so now you've never wanted to be with me then?" John asks coldly, his eyes ablaze.

"Don't even, John, I love you and you damn well know it, but you know you knew from the beginning I love him too. You are my Doctor as much as he is. Don't pretend like there wasn't a long list of girls before me."

"Mother-"

"And don't you start either!" Rose turned on James, "Don't you think you can decide things for me either, you're my son, not my keeper." With one last shake of her head, Rose blinked back her tears and straightened. "I'm going to bed, tomorrow we're going to discuss this, and you're going to tell me all about what you have or haven't figured out about Juni and I."

And with that she climbs up the stairs, gets ready for bed, and for the first time ever, locks her bedroom door.


	3. Chapter 3

"Rose," John begins quietly once Juni is safely at school and her sons are sitting across from them. "Rose, Juni's DNA, well TNA is Gallifreyan."

"You're Gallifreyan."

John shakes his head, "But I still have DNA, I still register as human, but Juni, Juni is far, far from human chromosomes. Same goes for the boys."

It's Rose's turn to shake her head. "No that doesn't make sense though, see, they were born two different ways, and I'm human, John, how can two humans have alien children?" There's a note of desperation in her voice that makes James reach over and gently brush his fingers over her hand. She looks at her children, who have never really been children and there's a sudden ache of love and loss, that she has never been able to properly baby them the way she does Juni, that there have been no lullabies and long nights and nights just for them.

"That's the thing Rose, I never realized….The Loom automatically picked up on the …. More evolved traits even if they weren't dominate, even if they were completely dormant."

"So they're TimeLords? Is that what you're saying are kids are destined to outlive us?"

John looks at her sadly. "The boys yes are some new sort of subspecies of Timelord. A new generation with new traits, but Juni… you and Juni are something entirely different."

Rose is shaking her head again even as her husband continues to explain.

"You see, you looked into the heart of the TARDIS, and no one's meant to do that, it nearly killed you, and it killed me when I drew it out of you, but you held it so long. So long that bits of it cluttered up inside bits that were like embers like flakes that went never really went out."

Rose feels her eyes and cheeks burn. "How long did you know? How long did he know?"

"Since you created yourself, or at least he, I, we guessed this might be so, but Rose oyu have to believe me when I say we thought it was completely dormant, that there would be no catalyst that could possible reignite those embers."

"And that catalyst was Juni?"

John glances at the boys and shakes his head, "No, not quite…Do you remember, sometime after the boys came about, and we were uhm… still trying? You had an accident at Torchwood, in Cardiff, the one built on the rift, a minor thing, but the rift reacted and you were sick for the rest of the day?"

"It was just a stomach bug, or something I ate." Rose whispers quietly, "It was normal John, things happen the rift is always fluctuating, it's always-"

"You heard singing Rose, singing and light and Dalek guns. Rose oyu looked into the past into your own past through that rift, you looked right into the Vortex again, the Vortex of another universe."

Rose stands suddenly knocking the table back and Johnny leaps up too, gently grasping her shoulders and rubbing, though his fingers seems to twitch a bit nervously. "But hos is that possible? How can I possibly have done that?"

"You didn't, well not this version of you anyway. Bad Wolf." John sigs and rubs his eyes and then James stands to fetch him a glass of water. He takes is appreciatively. "On game Station Five you told me, not that you would remember, but you said, that you took the words BAD WOLF and scattered them through time as a warning a way to guide yourself back to me. The thing is, you didn't just scatter them across time you scattered them across your timeline .Imagine Rose, at one point and time you saw all of time and space, all of your time, and you knew what was going to happen, so you found yourself, every time that you and the Doctor were separated and sent yourself a message. Bad Wolf knew you were going to be here, to live here with me, and our children. She knew this Universe would fall, and she knew that I would take her from you. She knew she would have to reignite the embers when the time came and that is what she did. She waited, waited until that perfect moment when the rift from Pete's world matched up with the Vortex of ours and sang to you. That song was her essence."

Rose can't bring herself to do much more than stare at him. After all this time, after everything, it feels as though her world is coming down. There's too much, she thinks, to many secrets and half-truths and never said things, too many wishes, and complications. Too many infinities of lives that could have happened, should have happened.

Rose stares into her mug of tea for a very long time, waiting for the anger to bubble over, waiting for the hurt and pain and tears to dissipate and leave her tongue feeling a whole lot less thick.

When she feels the numbness ice her insides she looks at him, them. She sees her husband and her sons, and considers the best parts of them. John has loved her, has always loved her, and Juni as well as the boys. There is no better father in the world than John Tyler-Noble-Smith, even for his boys who never got the chance to really just be boys. Even to his impossible daughter whom he suspected might bring his life crashing down with her uncontrollable abnormalities.

John Tyler-Noble-Smith is a good man, a man she loves who loves her. Rose looks at her sons too, once she decides this and feels a dominant rush of affection and instinct to protect them, protect them and Juni from a world crashing down around them.

"What do we have to do?"

It takes roughly a little less than three months for all the preparations to get done. Three months of planning and guilt and half-arguments and arguments left un-argued because there is so little time to argue anymore.

There is a little less than three months of watching life pass by, lives of people they know and don't know pass by without realizing they are doomed.

"I can't save them all, not this way." John whispers into Rose's naked skin one night. "Oh Rose, oh Rassilon, I can't do it. I can only manipulate the rift so far before it becomes too unstable, and then, then everything will be for naught."

Rose curls into him, her fingers clutching at the lean broadness of his shoulders. "What happens, if we the cracks eat us?"

"You cease to exist." John grips her hard enough to bruise in reply. "And I can't Rose, I can't lose you and everything we have. I just can't."

Rose feels everything shatter, they have never been so vulnerable in their lives, not in front of one another like this, but here he is and there is nothing she can say to comfort him, so instead she kisses him hard. She kisses his mouth and skin like she can kiss away the hurt, like she can steal it form him the way the Doctor stole the Vortex from her.

Tomorrow comes too soon. Mickey, Pete, Jackie and Tony line up where John tells them too, but the boys, Juni and Rose huddle close to him. The boys' handshakes are firm but the hugs are firmer, John can feel the fear, the sickness of guilt and sorrow in the tension of their muscles.

Rose kisses him goodbye and it's long and hard, reminding him of the abrasive purple marks she's left on his neck. There is no shame in those marks, even though they are well away from being teenagers, those marks are not hickeys or love bites, they are the manifestation of the scars this is leaving on them.

The hardest one to say goodbye to is Juni, maybe because she is small, and innocent and so much him and Rose it hurts, or maybe because he has doted and spoiled her rotten, or maybe because she is the embodiment of everything that is good in the world to him, but mostly John thinks it's because of the way her tiny hands grapple at the lapels of his suit, and the way her blond hair catches wildly in the wind, and the way her mouth stills asks _why_, even though her voice seems to portray some sort of horrified, understanding.

He kneels as his did when Rose tried to beg him not to stay, and kisses her hands. "Junior," He says softly with as much love and seriousness as he can muster. "I am going to talk to you like a grown-up, because you're a big girl, and I know you're clever enough to understand. You are going to cross a rift that leads into the void that will take you to Mummy's Universe. You have to because it's not safe here, and I have to stay because I need to make sure you get over there safe." She kisses her hands again and draws her close. "But I promise you Juni, I will never give up, I will save this Universe, and then I'll come find you. I promise, but I can't leave without trying to save anyone else either, ok?"

Junior nods, her hazel eyes, wide and glossy, stare at him utterly heartbroken, and she squeezes his hands. "But Why?"

He laughs at that and kisses her forehead, "Because Juni, there are so many people here that need saving, so very many. There are other little girls like you that have dreams, and strong you men like your brothers who can change the world, If I leave it'd be like committing genocide all over again."

John sighs and looks at Rose and James and Johnny and then back down at his daughter. "But you'll never be alone, you'll always have your mummy and brothers, and Gran and Pops and Uncle Mickey, and I know it's not the same." He breaths deeply. "But there is a man, called the Doctor , from your bedtime stories, and he lives there Juni, and he's brilliant. You'll love him, because he's just like daddy, only he's got two hearts and a silly, fantastic ancient blue box, and he'll love you too. I know he will." John squishes his daughter tight before setting her in front of him again. "And that's why I want you to promise me that if you ever find him, or he finds you, you'll love him Juni, you and your brothers and mum." He looks pointedly at the boys and then Rose, "can be a family with him, and then when I come for you, we'll all be a family together."

And that is all he can say before his voice will utterly shatter alongside his heart. Juni give a solemn hoarse promise, and the boys say nothing as he leads them all over to the others. Rose looks torn between confused and terrified, and angry and broken.

Rassilon he never wanted to see her look like this, it reminds him too much of Bad Wolf Bay.

"Now," John says fiddling with the rift manipulator he's created over the last few months, "You shouldn't have much to do, I've done' my best to hone in on location and time, and so all I need you to do is hold hands so no one gets separated and jump on my count alright?"

His family, it's so strange to think he has such a wonderfully large, human family, but there they all are and it breaks him to bits. He starts counting down from ten, but barely makes it to eight before Juni breaks hold of her mother and James, and runs to him again.

"Can't, can't, can't." She sobs reaching for him and John sweeps her up crying in earnest himself.

"Oh June-bug, oh my precious girl." John shudders in her grip, and Rose is crying to. "Juni, do you love me?"

She sobs her affirmative harder than ever.

"Then you have to let me go, right? Because if we love someone we let them go and that's what I'm doing right now, letting you go so you can live the most amazing life possible, oh Juni, all you have to do is look for that fantastic blue box and all the stars of every Galazy will be yours, me little June-bug. And I promise you it'll be amazing."

Rose comes forward and retrieves the girl, and kisses him again and he knows that if they can't move forward soon it'll be too late so he sends her back and counts from three. Rose has Juni bundled in her arms, and James and Johnny hook their arms through hers from either side, Mickey attaches on to one and Jackie, Pete and Tony to the other.

"Three!" he shouts and watches them jump, and then there is light, and they are gone.

John remembers the Time War, that last Great Time War and thinks that this moment far outstrips that one by light years.


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimed. So fair warning, Junior's story might be a little jumbled, because the way I see it, she, sort of like River, ends up in the Doctor's past more than a few times but Unlike River Junior's meeting with him have never been part og a set timeline, so most of her timeline is in flux.**

Breaking through the void bursts around Rose like a firework. It sets her skin aflame. It twists her insides and makes her ears pop. Junior trembles in her arms writhing, and thrashing at the sensations, Johnny and James tighten their grips; distantly her mother screams.

What has she done?

_What has she done?_

Did she and John really think that this was their best option for taking care of their family? really? This? Putting her family through this pain, and danger was their best option?

The Void is too powerful, to magnificent to hope that they can just jump it and land back into her old Time Vortex. The void will churn and crush and kill, of that Rose is completely certain. In the back of her mind there is a humming, a howl that grows and grows, beckons her and finally Rose Tyler opens her eyes. It offers a suggestion, a solution, a guarantee. Her mind blossoms once more, and she feels the completion that she never realized she had missed. Rose Tyler fades and Bad Wolf becomes. She draws her power forth, surging through the void and into the Time Vortex, drawing her family away from the desolate hopelessness of the void, and pushing them to the time where they'll be safely tucked away.

It feels like coming home. Her arms loosen, too weak and trembling to hold the weight of her daughter; Juni ever wiggling falls, plummeting out of her mother's arms. Bad Wolf dissolves into the Time Vortex atoms, spreading across all of space and time, weakly Rose Tyler calls out lingering in the despair of losing Juni calls out, reaches towards her family. Bad Wolf reacts: _ Not now, soon, time must move for them, _she sings, _hardships and troubles, then happiness._

The other Tylers scream reaching for Juni but as Juni's own eyes crack open all she can do is see her mother, burning up and beautiful. Juni falls to the sound of a lullaby she's only heard in a dream. _This is home, this is mother,_ the song says, _you are welcome here. _And Juni cries because she can see everything and anything. She sees the Doctor and all the things he's touched, she sees her mother with him. She sees empires fall and rise. She sees planets turn to dust and tears fall from her eyes like glimmering crystals as she marvels about the beauty of the world, of Universe and their histories. She marvels at the miracles and the curses, the placid and the invigorating, marvels at everything, treasures it like only a child can.

The Vortex winds around and around and around and Juni closes her eyes gently until there is a great heaving whir. A wheezing sound that rushes closer towards her, a noise made by a great big blue box, spinning her way. Juni throws up her arms in the terrified notion that it might just crash into her.

It doesn't. It yanks at her. Dragging her in with an odd mix of gentle force. The box's doors- The TARDIS's doors swing out, opening like an embrace. Juni squeezes her eyes shut as she lands gently on cool glass, though her skin Goosebumps at the feeling. Her eyes are still squeezed tight as she hears a flurry of moment coming her way, she's scared of who it might and might not be. Daddy, Juni blinks back fresh tears; maybe Daddy's here with the Doctor, in this grand old blue box he likes to talk about. Maybe they saved the world and mummy and everyone's here waiting for her to open her eyes, she tells herself, her childhood naivety competing with her too smart brain. She tries to swallow the lies but her mind is a flutter, she's five, a five year old genius, and the problem with that is genius isn't what makes children; it's what breaks them, so Juni curls up into herself her eyes closed tight, unwilling to chance the heartbreak-

"Junior Marion?" A voice asks gentle as warm trembling fingers push her hair back.

"Jus' Juni," she squeaks automatically.

There's a small weak noise that seems like a laugh, but sadder. "Just Juni are you alright? Where's your mummy-"

Juni's eyes fly open at that and she stares at a young-old man kneeling at her side, his long fingers barely touching her as he brushes back her hair. His hair flops a bit, just a bit like Johnny's does though it looks as though it's been shaken loose – the whole room of humming technology and flickering lights looks as though it's been shook up- and his green eyes are soft and tired and scared and a million other things in between. They are old eyes Juni decides, old eyes that stare at her a bit too closely.

"She's gone, they're all gone," She blinks back tears, the sudden and intense realization that she is all alone comes on.

There's a nudge in her brain that makes her freeze and recoil. She stares fretfully at the man. It happens again, this time, more of a gentle press, like a brain bump. She blinks, momentarily distracted. "That was you." She says, not really wanting an answer. She doesn't need many answers, she knows who this must be, knows it from her Daddy's stories and the singing TARDIS, and the way his eyes are old and achy. "Why do you know who I am?"

"How can I not, when you look all pink and yellow and just like your Mummy?" He swallows roughly.

Juni can't stop the tears from tripping over her cheeks this time. She trembles, sniffling and hiccupping and trying not to be _such a baby-_

"Rassilon Juni, you're so _little," _He says enveloping in a gentle hug. "So tiny, I didn't know you'd be so little."

Juni is too incoherent to ask what he means so quietly she just burrows into him, her fingers grabbing at tweed as she buries her face into the soft cotton of his shirt. The Doctor hugs her close, tucking all of her into him as he curls around her protectively.

He hums her lullaby, and that's how Juni knows that Daddy was right: the Doctor loves her. He doesn't let her go until she's all dried up, too tired for more tears, and even then he just gives her enough room to wipe her nose on a hanky.

"You don't look like Daddy, he said you would." Juni says quietly as he stands, still cradling her in his arms.

"I'm sorry," He says sound, genuinely ashamed of that fact. "Do you want me to? To look like your Dad?"

Juni rests her head on his shoulder and sniffs. Her eyes feel itchy. "I want you to be you."

That makes the Doctor pause and stare at her, his eyes bright, something close to happy, and lips quivering in a smile. "Thank you." He whispers into her hair and Juni shrugs playing with his bowtie, she's tired and aching and doesn't want to talk anymore. Her shoulders relax then her stomach and her head falls back slightly and after mere minuets Juni is asleep. The Doctor pauses a moment to examine her face, delicate and so Rose like his heart aches suddenly.

By now he's been able to pretend missing her was over and done with like he's done with all of the others, but it's not. He never stops missing his companions but Rose's is a special kind of ache. He aches for her fervently like he does for Susan, and Gallifrey.

He shudders slightly, and shakes himself out of his thoughts to trudge alone. The hallway finally begins to end (the TARDIS has made an rather elaborate miniature labyrinth out of the hallway's leading to the guest rooms, and he has a sneaking suspicion that when he finds her a room, it will be a room for her. Made especially for her with all the inherent fondness the TARDIS has for members of the Tyler family.

The hallway ends, there is only one door in this hallway. It's decorated with elaborately twisted metal that creates delicate little golden stars against a darker brass doors, they open inward at his approach, and he can only raise a brow at the contents. There are many varying shades of blue throughout the room, mostly found in the TARDIS-blue silken bedspread (decorated in large elaborate golden Gallifreyan writing) and curtains colored navy blue and speckled with paler shades of gold, and paler blues mimicking stardust (or at least what the TARDIS must think is stardust) but the most impressive thing about the room, is it is nearly impossible to discern walls from floor, and even floor from ceiling because everything is an every changing, unending image of the universe, with softly twinkling stars and bright nebulas and planets, spinning to a soft barely present lullaby.

The Doctor walks to the curving cradle-like bed and lays Juni down, stopping a moment as his hand splays unintentionally over the better part of her back. His hearts nearly burst, and he pulls away tucking her in sloppily before fleeing the room. He makes it halfway down the hall before he turns darts back and pokes his head in. He finds her asleep and breathing. He leaves. He returns. He continues this for a long while, it's hard to tell how long, but what he can tell is the TARDIS finds it extremely amusing so he assumes it must be awhile.

Finally he enters again, doesn't just poke his head in, but enters and sits, on the very edge of the bed. "Hello Juni," He says his voice so low he can barely hear himself, "You don't know me, but I know you, well sort of. You're very bad at travelling backwards in Time by the way, one day you're twenty eight the next your sixteen, sometimes even younger, but never this young." He breathes in slowly, inhaling her familiar scent of time and stardust, "I didn't realize how little you must have been when you met future me –well me now- but you're not even elbows and knees yet, you're just a big old head with a miniature body."

He touches her hand gently, his green eyes soft and swimming as her takes in the tangle of wild blonde curls against the pillows. "But you're still so beautiful. To be honest, I don't really know who you are. Every time we've met in the past, well your future, it's been swing in, save the day, close the circular paradox and go." He laughs softly to himself. "Though I must say it sounds familiar, I suppose it really is obnoxious to do that to people." He grins weakly, but his shoulders slump. "I guess it's a taste of my own medicine, though, I just wish you told me more, I mean what am I supposed to do with you now? You're pint sized. You're all tiny and fragile and how am I supposed to keep you safe? I've never really had a child aboard the TARDIS, not for long and that excludes Susan because at least she could reach the counsel."

The Doctor turns away from the sleeping girl with a shudder. "But I couldn't even keep her safe. You, I could lose like a piece of lint. Like a button off my shirt, and then what?" He rubs his face furiously with a hand, and slumps further over.

Juni grunts, softly curling up under the sheets for warmth, and the Doctor snaps up eyes alert. He examines her a moment, more before tucking her in better, and closing the bed-curtains around her. He backs away slowly, half hoping she's wake startled and in need of comforting or lullabies or something.

She doesn't, just lays there asleep her cheeks rosy and curls a mess.

"Tea, I'll bring tea for when she wakes up" He mutters scampering out of the room, as though she had truly awoken, "All Tylers like tea. Good for the tannin molecules too…."


End file.
